8:13 P.M.
The B9077
East of Banchory, Scotland
“And you think Conor Hale can get you that close to him?” Mehreen asked, glancing over at Harry as the Scottish countryside sped past in the night.
“If anyone can,” he responded, eyes focused on the road before him. “Tarik is going to want to know what happened—how it happened. And I’m the only one who can tell him.”
She shook her head, looking away from him and out the window. This went against everything she knew as an intelligence officer. Every instinct honed over the years of running assets in the field.
Mehreen glanced down at the mobile in her hand, held low and to the side, out of Harry’s line of sight. A message hastily tapped out on screen giving the Shaikh’s location, along with her Thames House identifier code. The phone now receiving a strong signal, for nearly the first time since they had left the airstrip.
Protocol said to send it, to alert Five, ensure they could get to Tarik before Nichols could reach him. Take him into custody, interrogate him. Find out what he knew. That was her duty.
Duty. Honor. She looked down at her hands, the dried blood staining her fingertips. Love. None burned brighter than that last, no matter how important the others might have once seemed.
She could feel Flaharty’s presence in the back seat of the car, his eyes on her in the darkness. Watching her, reading her.
The way he must have done in the days leading up to his attempt on her life. His murder of Nick.
Aydin. Ismail. Nick. Carol. They had both lost so very much. And nothing they could ever do would bring back the ones they had loved…but they could avenge them.
It felt as if she was standing on the edge of a precipice, the bottomless chasm yawning wide at her feet. Seeking to swallow her whole—her and Nichols both. Perhaps they were all to be damned at the last.
She closed the phone, feeling as if something had died within her even as she did so. Glancing back over at Harry, her mind once again running over what he had said. It was a mad plan.
Perhaps just mad enough to work.
“And once you’re in, once you’ve killed him. What then—how do you get out?”
It seemed like a long time before he replied, his face masked by the darkness of the car. A touch of resignation in his voice. “Getting out, Mehr…has never been part of the plan.”
8:37 P.M.
Balmoral Castle
“There you are, sir,” the police sergeant said, rising from his knee beside Roth as the intelligence officer leaned back on a couch on the second floor of the castle, its upholstery now stained with his blood. “You should still have it looked at proper when you get back, but the bullet went straight through—no expansion from what I can see.”
Which didn’t prevent it from hurting like bugger-all, Roth thought, thanking the man curtly as he pushed himself to his feet, rifle in hand as he made his way back toward the tower.
The sound of sirens clearly audible through the broken windows, dozens of emergency vehicles filling the entry drive below. Blue and white lights washing over the bullet-pocked granite of the castle walls.
They were loading the body of Colin Hilliard onto a stretcher as he entered the tower itself, drawing a sheet over the bodyguard’s face in a gesture of respect. Respect for a man who had died as nobly as he had lived. Defending his Queen.
A good man, Roth thought regretfully, running a hand over his face. Perhaps if they had only been here earlier—perhaps…you could torment yourself forever with thoughts like that. Condemned to a hell of your own making.
“No ID on this one either,” he heard someone say, looking over to see a constable on his knees by the body of the last terrorist Nichols had shot, lying there in a pool of his own blood. Another Police Scotland officer standing over him. “But he has a mobile.”
The man pulled the phone out with a gloved hand, his voice changing suddenly even as he did so. “And—it’s ringing.”
It was the Shaikh. It had to be.
“Give it here,” Roth barked, extending a hand as he advanced toward the men. “Get Thames House on the call.”
Number withheld. He stared at the phone’s screen for a long moment as it rang for a second, then a third time—the signal weak, but the call still coming through. Trying to delay for as long as he could.
It was as the phone rang for a fourth time that he swept a dark, bloodied thumb over the screen, lifting the mobile to his ear. His lips suddenly dry as dust.
“Salaam alaikum…Shaikh.”
There was a perceptible pause, and then the voice of Tarik Abdul Muhammad responded, “Where is Farid?”
“He fell in the assault, Shaikh,” Roth replied, the suspicion only too audible in the terrorist’s voice. Stall for time. “A martyr in Allah’s Struggle.”
“And the Queen?”
“She is herself dead, along with her family, praise be to God. I—”
The line went dead suddenly, and Roth swore—glancing over at the Police Scotland technician standing a few feet away. Knowing even as he did so that they hadn’t had enough time.
8:40 P.M.
The warehouse
Port of Aberdeen
They were compromised, Tarik thought, a wave of premonition washing over him as he stared at the mobile in his hand.
Knowing somehow that his men were dead. That the British had managed to foil the attack.
He threw the phone away with an angry curse, taking in the sight of Nadeem standing there a few feet away. Surprise filling the young black man’s face.
“Don’t just stand there,” Tarik spat, pushing past him as he strode out into the center of the warehouse, getting the attention of his remaining fighters. “We need to pack everything up. Destroy everything that can’t be moved quickly. Rig the building. Now move, quickly—yalla, yalla!”
8:42 P.M.
The quay
Port of Aberdeen
“And that’s the warehouse?” Harry asked, glancing across the harbor toward a fence-enclosed row of buildings, the cold waters of the North Sea lapping at the quay a few meters away.
A silent nod from Conor Hale served as his answer, the former SAS man sitting there on the boot of the Vauxhall at Harry’s side. Rubbing his wrists to restore circulation to them—the marks of the zipties which had bound them still visible in the harbor lights. “It’s where my men delivered the weapons.”
Weapons he had permitted to arrive at their destination, Harry realized, regret gnawing at him from within. Weapons that had killed brave men in the halls of Balmoral.
But regret had never brought anyone back from the dead. Or avenged their deaths.
“What do we have, three guards on the perimeter?” he asked, glancing over at Stephen Flaharty.
“Aye,” the Irishman responded. “Maybe more. There are so many sodding containers—he could be hiding men anywhere.”
“And that’s precisely why we’re not going to waste time looking for them,” Harry said, feeling Mehreen’s eyes on him as he turned back to Hale, pulling his Sig-Sauer from its shoulder holster.
He’d been a good man…once, Harry thought as he stared into the sergeant’s bloodied, defiant countenance. A brother in arms. A guardian.
But somewhere along the line, the protector had become a predator. Time to put the dog down.
“You understand how this is going to work, right?” he asked, brass-checking the weapon before handing it over to Hale, butt-first.
Another quick nod, sweat beading on the man’s forehead, even in the chill of salt night breeze. “I take you to meet the Shaikh, get you past his guards as my ‘prisoner.’ Tell him that the attack was a failure, offer you up.”
“Right. You get me in close. Put me in the same room with Tarik.” With Flaharty providing overwatch with the rifle and what remained of their ammunition, Harry thought but didn’t say, glancing at the Irishman. And Mehreen.
Hale just stared down at the pistol in his hand, hi
s fingers trembling ever so slightly. “What if he doesn’t buy it?”
“Well that’s a problem you’re just going to have to overcome, mate,” Harry said, shaking his head. The exposed wires of the suicide vest visible beneath the sergeant’s unzipped jacket. “Because your life depends on it.”
Hale started to speak, but Harry cut him off—nodding to Mehreen. “We’re both going in wired for sound. Everything that happens around us, every single word that is spoken, she’ll hear it. If you fail to take me to Tarik…she triggers the vest. If you try to kill me, she triggers the vest. If you try to signal him, she triggers the vest. If you try to do a runner or go off the reservation in any way, she triggers the vest. In short, the only way you walk out alive is to make sure everything—and I mean everything—goes according to plan. Is that clear?”
The man swore in anger and fear, his face pale as he met Harry’s eyes. “But you’ve seen as well as I what one of these bloody things does. If she detonates the vest, you—”
“Will be dead right along with you,” Harry replied, ice in his voice. “That’s a gamble I’m prepared to take.”
Hale held his gaze for a long moment, cursing once more under his breath. “You’re insane.”
Harry just looked at him.
“It’s time we got into position. Flaharty, take him with you. I’ll be along in a moment.”
“Wait!” Hale exclaimed, raising his empty hand as he pushed himself to his feet—glancing back and forth between Harry and the Irishman. “Once I get you to him—what then? You have a plan for killing the sod? You’re not going to get that close to him with a loaded weapon.”
Harry gestured to the Sig. “That’s why I gave one to you.”
8:46 P.M.
Thames House
Millbank, London
“…flights departing from Scotland’s Aberdeen Airport have been grounded on the runways as the Prime Minister implements emergency measures under the Civil Contingencies Act. Inbound flights have been diverted to Edinburgh as officials with the Home Office suggest that the measures may expand to all flights in and out of Scotland. Here to discuss the still-developing situation with us is former Home Secretary, the Right Honourable Lloyd…”
Marsh closed the door of the conference room, shutting off the sound of the BBC newscast without. “Where are we at on the intercepted call?” he asked, glancing at Norris as he walked past them, taking his seat at the head of the table.
“Tarik Abdul Muhammad is in Scotland, likely Aberdeen based on the mobile towers,” the analyst responded, looking up from his tablet. “That much we can establish with a reasonable certainty, provided he wasn’t routing the call through a relay.”
“How probable is that?”
“Based on the sophistication of these attacks…” Norris’ voice trailed off for a moment. “I don’t think we have any way of ruling it out completely until GCHQ completes their final analysis.”
“And how soon can we expect them to do so?”
“Several hours.”
Several hours they didn’t have, Marsh thought, drumming his fingers against the table. Nor the manpower to go searching blindly, not with so much of it now concentrated on Balmoral.
“Downing Street will need to be apprised. The PM has already indicated that flight closures may be extended south to Dundee and Edinburgh and the RAF is mobilizing to escort flights in if it proves necessary.”
Emergency measures, measures he had thought he would never see implemented. “What is our status on the security of Her Majesty…MacCallum?”
“22 SAS just jumped, MoD estimates a half hour will be time enough for them to regroup on the ground and reinforce the police perimeter. SO-14 is coordinating with Police Scotland on transit to Holyrood.”
8:47 P.M.
The port of Aberdeen
Scotland
Just a few more steps, Harry thought, his eyes alert—scanning the quay as he walked forward, his face bruised and bloodied from the impact of Flaharty’s fists. His hands bound before him.
Above them, the ghostly shape of a massive shipping crane loomed in the darkness, the cold muzzle of the Sig-Sauer pressing into the back of his neck. Tension clearly palpable in Hale’s grip on his arm.
Just a few more steps and they would be visible to the Shaikh’s sentries. And then everything was going to depend on Hale’s ability to keep them both alive long enough to get to Tarik.
To get him inside the blast radius.
It was a strange feeling, walking to one’s death. Mehreen’s words from moments before, still ringing in his ears. “Even if you succeed, even if you kill him, what have you gained by sacrificing yourself? There’ll just be another to replace him. And someone else after them.”
And another and another and another…war without end. Harry’s face tightened. It was like fighting a Hydra, cutting off one head just to watch another grow in its place.
“And that’s all the more reason this has to be the end,” he had told her, his hand touching her arm. “For me.”
Only the dead have seen the end of war. The end of all sorrow, drowned, itself, in the grave.
The gate came into view as he rounded the stack of shipping containers. Shouts of surprise and alarm breaking the silence of the night as a pair of Tarik’s foot soldiers—young men in jeans and light jackets—reacted to the sudden appearance of the two men.
He saw them moving forward, rifles leveled at the two of them. Felt Hale’s voice ring out, the former sergeant’s hand on his shoulder, giving him a rough shove—sending him to his knees on the asphalt.
The pistol aimed at his head, only inches away from his temple.
The end of the road.
Chapter 35
8:49 P.M.
“…don’t know me,” Mehreen heard Hale say—rougher shouts in the background as she listened over her headphones in the cold, forbidding silence of the car, “but your Shaikh does—and I need you to take me to him at once. You’ve been betrayed, and this man knows who is responsible.”
It was hard to believe this was happening, she thought, staring down at the phone in her hand—a single number displayed on screen. The number that would trigger the vest. That they were actually doing this, that any of it was real.
The look of haunted resignation in Nichols’ eyes as he turned to leave still burned into her memory.
“Even assuming you can get the gun from Hale in time,” she had said finally, speaking only once they were alone, the figures of Flaharty and the SAS man disappearing into the darkness between massive shipping containers, “you’re going to be dead the moment you pull the trigger. But you know that, don’t you? That’s what you meant by saying you never planned to get out.”
A faint, weary smile crossing Harry’s face as he shook his head slowly, reaching forward to place his hand on her arm. The cold chill seeming to reach her very bones as he whispered, “No.”
“But then—you said…” Her voice had trailed off, trembling despite herself. Knowing, in that moment, exactly what he expected from her.
8:51 P.M.
The warehouse
“Here?” Tarik demanded, shoving the laptop computer into a carrying case—his brow furrowing as he looked up into Nadeem’s dark face.
“Yes, just without and demanding to be allowed to speak with you, Shaikh. And he’s brought a prisoner—an American. Says we’ve been betrayed.”
That much seemed certain. But it was impossible to know if Colville himself might have been behind the betrayal. The Shaikh gritted his teeth in barely-repressed fury. Used and thrown away at the last, despite all his precautions. “Did they come alone?”
“As far as the lookouts know, yes.” A belief that counted for nothing, Tarik knew. The young men didn’t have the training or the experience to have been able to discern that. But Nadeem wasn’t done. “And the man—Hale—he’s been wounded.”
Tarik slung the case over his shoulder, picking up his Browning from off the table. “Take me to
them.”
8:52 P.M.
Fear. Harry could see it, raw and naked, in the eyes of the young man standing not ten feet away—the assault rifle grasped awkwardly in his hands.
Feel it, in the tension of Hale’s grip of his shoulder—the pistol barrel’s muzzle scant inches away. Trembling, but never leaving his head. Ready to blow his brains out.
“Put your gun down, bruv. Drop it—now!”
He had known they wouldn’t get inside armed, no matter what he had told Hale. Never a part of the plan.
“No,” Conor Hale responded, shaking his head. Desperation, defiance in his eyes. “Not until I’ve handed this man over to the Shaikh.”
“If you don’t put the gun down, I’m going to end you right here. Take him to the Shaikh myself.”
“And he’ll kill both of you fools with his bare hands.”
The young man swore, glancing over at the guard backing him up and then back at Hale, his grip on the rifle tightening. Too proud to back down in front of his partner. A perverse, twisted sense of honor.
“I’m not telling you again, bruv,” he repeated, his finger curling around the trigger. “Put it down before I kill you.”
Another minute and they’d be dead—the both of them, like as not. Harry raised his head, catching the sergeant’s eye for a brief moment. Feeling him waver.
He inclined his head toward Hale, a nearly imperceptible nod. Do it.
“All right, all right,” Mehreen heard Hale exclaim, punctuating his words with a curse. Her heart sinking as she heard the scrape of gunmetal, a weapon being kicked across the asphalt.
A last, faint hope extinguished in that moment. A futile prayer that this might end in some other way. Fate.
She heard the dull sound of a blow, Nichols grunting as if in pain. A rough laugh. The clearly recognizable accents of South London, a young man barking orders.
Fire. Pain flooding through Harry’s body as he reeled from the blow of the young man’s rifle butt to his bruised ribs, nearly going down in the mud and broken asphalt of the loading yard—the metallic taste of blood filling his mouth as he bit deeply into his lip in an effort to keep from crying out.
Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors Book 3) Page 71
